Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Mistress of the Art of Death
    Unavailable
    Mistress of the Art of Death
    Unavailable
    Mistress of the Art of Death
    Audiobook13 hours

    Mistress of the Art of Death

    Written by Ariana Franklin

    Narrated by Rosalyn Landor

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The national bestselling hit hailed by the New York Times as a "vibrant medieval mystery...[it] outdoes the competition."

    In medieval Cambridge, England, Adelia, a female forensics expert, is summoned by King Henry II to investigate a series of gruesome murders that has wrongly implicated the Jewish population, yielding even more tragic results. As Adelia's investigation takes her behind the closed doors of the country's churches, the killer prepares to strike again.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 6, 2007
    ISBN9781429586184
    Unavailable
    Mistress of the Art of Death
    Author

    Ariana Franklin

    Ariana Franklin was the award-winning author of Mistress of the Art of Death and the critically acclaimed, bestselling medieval thriller series of the same name, as well as the twentieth-century thriller City of Shadows. She died in 2011, while writing The Siege Winter.

    More audiobooks from Ariana Franklin

    Related to Mistress of the Art of Death

    Related audiobooks

    Historical Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      History

      Jun 30, 2021

      A NEW HISTORY OF VIKINGS FROM SCANDINAVIA TO THE SILK ROADS CAT JARMAN Wm Collins, 336pp, £25 As a 17-year-old, Financial Times reviewer William Dalrymple was one of ten diggers who made an important archaeological discovery in a vicar’s garden near

      11 min read

    • Article

      Becket’s Brutal Murder Reimagined In Museum – With His Skull As A Finale

      Apr 25, 2021

      For centuries it was the world’s most notorious state-sanctioned murder. When King Henry II of England made it clear in the winter of 1170 that his dislike of the cleric Thomas Becket had reached new levels, it took just a few days for four of his kn

      4 min read

    • Article

      Faces In Places

      Aug 10, 2023

      Oxford’s Christ Church Cathedral dates from the 12th century and sits in the centre of St Aldgate’s, soaring imperiously above manicured lawns, ponds and a stunning wildflower meadow. It was in these grounds in 1856 that Lewis Carroll (at that time C

      4 min read

    • Article

      New Haunts On The Block

      Jun 16, 2022

      New Haunts On The Block
      9 min read

    • Article

      History

      Sep 22, 2021

      History
      14 min read

    • Article

      Right Royal Nazi Wedding

      Mar 8, 2023

      How bizarre the wedding of the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson on 3rd June 1937 was. There were almost no guests. A renegade priest hosted the ceremony. The Royal Family boycotted it. And the man who hosted the lavish affair was a Nazi collaborato

      3 min read

    • Article

      Heresy they Say?

      Aug 21, 2020

      Heresy they Say?
      5 min read

    • Article

      Welcome

      Aug 5, 2021

      Welcome
      1 min read

    • Article

      Anniversaries

      Jan 23, 2020

      Anniversaries
      5 min read

    • Article

      80 Who Killed Claude Kendall? The Mystery Murder Of Charles Fort’s Publisher

      Dec 3, 2020

      Millions of Americans celebrated Thanksgiving in the comfort of their homes on 25 November 1937, but for one man fate reserved a different outcome. That same night, in a room on the eighth floor of a New York hotel, Claude Kendall was brutally beaten

      7 min read

    • Article

      Out Of The Shadows

      Dec 28, 2021

      Out Of The Shadows
      1 min read

    • Article

      A Country House weekend

      Aug 13, 2020

      A Country House weekend
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Massacre of Glencoe

      Jul 30, 2018

      The Massacre of Glencoe
      4 min read

    • Article

      Current Affairs

      Sep 22, 2021

      WHY WOMEN ARE STILL TAKEN LESS SERIOUSLY THAN MEN, AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT MARY ANN SIEGHART Doubleday, 384pp, £16.99 Sieghart opens her book with the story of Mary McAleese, president of Ireland, on an official delegation to the Vatican in 1999.

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Yorkshire Coin Conspiracy

      Jun 8, 2023

      The Yorkshire Coin Conspiracy
      6 min read

    • Article

      Mary’s Secret Code

      Feb 18, 2022

      Mary’s Secret Code
      5 min read

    • Article

      Penning Poison

      Nov 15, 2023

      Poison pen letters were how people stirred unhappiness before the days of anonymous comments online. Emily Cockayne whose books delve into interesting corners of human experience (her last was about waste) has scoured three centuries of local newspap

      1 min read

    • Article

      Books Of 2021

      Dec 29, 2021

      Available from amazon.co.uk Bestselling historian Andrew Lownie reveals the dramatic lives of the Windsors post-abdication. This is a story of a Royal shut out by his family and forced into exile; of the Nazi attempts to recruit the Duke to their cau

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Devil’s domain

      Feb 22, 2024

      The Devil’s domain
      13 min read

    • Article

      Spare Us The Wagging Finger

      Oct 26, 2023

      THE SOCIAL HISTORIAN Dominic Sandbrook could recently be found in the Culture section of the Sunday Times reviewing a book called Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain by Charlotte Lydia Riley. Sandbrook, who knows his onions, didn’t

      3 min read

    • Article

      All The Beauty In The World

      Jun 28, 2023

      Bodley Head, 240pp, £20) Patrick Bringley was working in the events department of the New Yorker when his brother died. Bringley found he ‘badly wanted to stand still a while.’ He gave up his job and went to join New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art

      1 min read

    • Article

      Historic Haunts

      Dec 10, 2021

      Historic Haunts
      5 min read

    Reviews for Mistress of the Art of Death

    4/5

    1,411 ratings185 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      FATASTIC audio book. I don't even like mysteries most of the time and I'm giving it 5 stars.
    • 3/5
      medieval mystery meets csi, with an interesting lead character. a woman who in the 12th century is not only a doctor but a pathologist, in those days enough to get you burnt as a witch. good mix of historical fact and fiction.
    • 4/5
      An intriguing (though short lived) series about a 12th century female forensic doctor who is removed from her beloved Salerno, Italy to Cambridge, UK to help catch a child killer. The dead speak to her and they have a lot to say.

      The plot was well developed and the characters were fully realised. Franklin does well in keeping with the time and place (12th century England) though she sometimes cheats with patrois and language, by having a character comment they could not understand what was being said between two other characters speaking the local tongue. Well, maybe cheating is not the right word but it is a clever device to get a better feel for the period.

      The mystery itself was difficult enough to suss out who the killer(s) were, which is why this book endears itself to me and shows the author was skillful enough to drop hints but not so obvious as you figure out the entire thing in the first 50 pages but keeps you turning until the end.

      Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book. Sort of a 12th century "Bones" set in the time of Henry Plantagenet and populated by horse-faced Fenlanders, Jews, Saracens and a doctor of the dead called Adelia, all of whom are fighting against the odds. Some wonderful characters, a good mystery and the age-old clash between church and crown. Looking forward to reading the other books in this series. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      Overall I enjoyed this, though it did sometimes seem like the MC was dropped into 12th-century England via some time-traveling contraption in the 21st-century.
    • 4/5
      Excellent story/plot, intelligently written and very compelling to read, even if it is a bit gruesome.

      Adelia, Simon, & Mansur are brought to England by Henry II to unravel the mysterious killings of the children of Cambridge, which have been wrongly blamed on the Jews. Unbeknown to the people of the town, Adriana is a "doctor of the dead", she has a way with forensics, which is why Henry II requested she be brought to England. Simon is a master spy for the King of Sicily, who is a great friend & coworker of Adriana, with Mansur being their bodyguard.

      I am looking forward to reading the next in the series, which is sitting on my desk at work waiting for me.
    • 5/5
      Interesting take on women and racial tensions in the middle ages.....almost like an Ivanhoe murder mystery. The characters are likable and real. Good series overall.
    • 4/5
      In medieval Cambridge four children have been murdered. The Catholic townsfolk blame their Jewish neighbors, so to save them from the rioting mob, the Cambridge Jews are placed under the protection of the king. Henry II is no friend of the Jews - or anyone really - but he believes in law and order, and he desperately needs to taxes he receives from Jewish merchants. Hoping scientific investigation will help catch the true killer, Henry calls on his cousin, the King of Sicily - whose subjects include the best medical experts in Europe - and asks for his finest "master of the art of death," the earliest form of medical examiner. The Italian doctor chosen for the task is a young prodigy from the University of Salernoan expert in the science of anatomy and the art of detection. But her name is Adelia; the king has been sent a "mistress of the art of death".
    • 4/5
      Mistress of the Art of Death is the first in a series of medieval historical mysteries by the late Ariana Franklin.This book has an unusual heroine. Her name is Adelia Aguilar and she is a trained doctor, very rare in the year 1171. Adelia is from Salerno, where women are allowed to attend medical school. Her speciality, however, is as a 'doctor of the dead' - in other words, she is skilled in performing autopsies and finding out the causes of death. When several young children go missing in Cambridge and the city's Jews are blamed for the disappearances, Adelia is sent to England to investigate.I love reading about medieval history and Franklin touches on many different aspects of the period - from the big things, such as the relationship between the church and the monarchy, to the small, such as the clothes people wore and the food they ate. Adelia, being Italian, is unfamiliar with the politics and customs of 12th century England, which allows the reader to learn along with her - so no need to worry if you don't have much knowledge of the period. Despite some very modern dialogue and Adelia's distinctly 21st century thought processes, everything else felt suitably 'medieval'. Setting and atmosphere are so important in fiction and this is an area in which I thought Franklin excelled. It wouldn't really be fair for me to comment on the historical accuracy as I haven't studied the 12th century in any detail but I would say that if you're looking for a serious piece of historical fiction which is correct in every detail then you need to look elsewhere. Accept this book for what it is though, and it's an enjoyable read.The writing in the prologue and opening chapters feels quite light and humorous and I expected the whole book to have the same tone, but when Adelia begins to investigate the mystery things start to feel a lot darker. I should point out that the story does revolve around the abduction and murder of children which isn't nice to read about; it's quite graphic in places and a bit disturbing. As for the mystery itself, I didn't guess who the murderer was, but then I wasn't really trying to guess. Sometimes I prefer not to attempt to work things out and just enjoy the story - and this was one of those occasions.I found Adelia a fascinating and engaging character although, as I mentioned earlier, she thought, spoke and behaved more like a woman from the 21st century than the 12th. She's a strong, independent person who is constantly questioning the role of women in society and has a very modern outlook on medicine, the law and life in general; I liked her but she wasn't a believable medieval woman. Most of the secondary characters are well-rounded and interesting, particularly Adelia's housekeeper, Gyltha, and her grandson, Ulf - and I loved the depiction of Henry II.I enjoyed Mistress of the Art of Death and I look forward to being reacquainted with Adelia Aguilar in the other three books in the series.
    • 1/5
      OK. Tried, multiple times, can not get into it. Got to page 112 this time, but pbbttttt.
      I quit.
    • 4/5
      I listened to this Audio book while driving in to work and I thought it was terrific. I saw the book in my daughters book collection. It's a historical mystery, set in medieval Cambridge; its heroine, Vesuvia Adelia Rachael Ortese Aguilar, is a doctor, no, a medical examiner and there's a big mystery about brutally murdered children (the Jews are being accused!), and also a charming (and unlikely) romance to add to the fun. I really enjoyed this Medical mystery and the reading. It certainly was nicely done and I look forward to other mysteries featuring Adelia and Rowley. Jack Murphy
    • 4/5
      A very good Medieval mystery. It does a good job of making that time come alive.
    • 4/5
      This book is filled with strong characters, especially the protagonist Adelia who refuses to be anything than what she is: a 12th century forensic scientist. The writing is unique and clear, leaving much to the reader's imagination and interpolation. However, it is not for anyone squeamish about children's murders and mutilation. If you want a good mystery where the "whodunit" is difficult to pinpoint, then it's worth a read. I'm moving on to the others in the series next.
    • 4/5
      This was a great historical mystery set in Cambridge during the reign of King Henry II. The opening is a take-off on Canterbury Tales, where most of the main characters are introduced. The main character is Adelia Aguilar of Salerno, a coroner who has been sent by the King of Sicily as a favor to Henry. She travels with Simon of Naples (an investigator) and her medical assistant Mansur, who is a eunuch. Their task is to try to discover who is killing Christian children in Cambridge. I really loved this novel, it was well written, with fully developed characters. Throw in an unconventional love affair and the historical setting, and I was hooked.
    • 2/5
      Quite frankly, I kept having to remind myself that this was medieval England, not Victorian, while I read this book. The female protagonist was unbelievably modern, to a point where her brashness would have annoyed me (often called militaristically feminist, to my dismay). Think, a woman this strong has been flung into such ancient times with an unthinkable career and sense of self. Then, yes, she has a modern romance. And, my God!, an attraction to a man. Now I understand this is pre-Victoria, but I could not believe a woman at this time, who is so strong in her opinions and so open in her work, could fall in love so swiftly.

      Beyond that, the mystery aspect of this story was intriguing, with the premise of disproving an allegation against Jews for multiple murders of children. My suspension of disbelief didn't have to go far there.

      Overall, I was extremely disappointed in this novel. It was tedious and difficult to read. Not recommended.
    • 3/5
      Very much enjoyed the historical aspects and am looking forward to more of her books because of that.

      However, I found the characters a little vaguely written and was especially struck by the lack of explanation for the killer turning into the monster that he became.
    • 4/5
      Adelia is the 12th century equivalent of a coroner who is called it to figure out who is killing children in Cambridge. The village is in an uproar, with the local Jewish population quarantined in the castle because the rest of the villagers believe they are guilty (even though more children have been killed since they've been there). A female doctor is anathema to social standards, so Adelia spends a lot of time sneaking around in order to do her work. I learned a lot of things that I now want to know more about: Henry II, Salerno, and 12th century Europe in general. I'll have to pick up the other books in this series at some point.
    • 4/5
      An intriguing (though short lived) series about a 12th century female forensic doctor who is removed from her beloved Salerno, Italy to Cambridge, UK to help catch a child killer. The dead speak to her and they have a lot to say.

      The plot was well developed and the characters were fully realised. Franklin does well in keeping with the time and place (12th century England) though she sometimes cheats with patrois and language, by having a character comment they could not understand what was being said between two other characters speaking the local tongue. Well, maybe cheating is not the right word but it is a clever device to get a better feel for the period.

      The mystery itself was difficult enough to suss out who the killer(s) were, which is why this book endears itself to me and shows the author was skillful enough to drop hints but not so obvious as you figure out the entire thing in the first 50 pages but keeps you turning until the end.

      Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      An enjoyable story, well crafted. Knowing the premise, I was concerned that the anachronisms (noted in the author's not at the end) would be worse than they would. A female doctor in the 12th century is a difficult concept to handle without giving the character too much knowledge, too much skill, and too much acceptance by society. I'd say Franklin does stray a little over the line from time to time (Adelia washes her hands frequently, apparently doesn't hold with a single folk superstition, and has the support of the King of England) but none of the infractions are enough to derail the believability of the story.
    • 2/5
      The setting and characters were extremely interesting, but I don't have the stomach for the details of the murders. I'd heartily recommend it to someone who does have a strong tolerance for descriptions of violence; I'm just not the right reader, and I probably won't read further in the series.
    • 5/5
      A child has been brutally murdered in Cambridge and three others disappeared; the population blames the Jews, who had to seek refuge in the castle after an angry mob killed two of their own. Without the Jews being able to ply their trade, King Henry II is losing valuable revenue and has asked his friend, the king of Sicily, to send an investigator and someone versed in the art of death, in other words, a forensic scientist. As a result, Simon of Naples, along with Mansur, the manservant and bodyguard, and Adelia Aguilar, doctor to the dead, arrive in England on their secret mission, intent on discovering the child killer.Having read The Death Maze first (not realising when I picked it up that it was the second volume in a series featuring Adelia Aguilar), I was very keen to start at the beginning to discover how Adelia and Mansur had arrived in England. As with The Death Maze, Ariana Franklin's characterisation is first class (I particularly liked the dog, Safeguard, with its abominable smell), imbuing everyone (fictitious or real) with flesh and blood. The feudal system, the power struggles between the Church and the State (in the person of the king), the persecution of the Jews, as well as day-to-day life in Cambridge towards the end of the 12th century, were brought vividly to life, and the identity of the killer (mostly) a surprise. As this novel is about the murder of young children, some of the passages were quite harrowing, especially to me as a parent. The reason this book doesn't quite get full marks is that there were sections in the middle of the book where the pace slowed quite considerably, as the group investigate and Franklin gives the reader a flavour of the time, perhaps losing herself in detail a little too much to maintain the pace. I also would have welcomed a glossary of the more unfamiliar words of the time and of the East Anglian dialect that some of the characters in the novel are fond of using.I was sad to learn about the author's death (now already two years ago) while I was reading it, so it's upsetting to imagine that there won't be any further adventures with Adelia and her friends after the fourth volume, Assassin's Prayer. In the meantime, I've already got the third volume, Relics of the Dead (sitting on the shelf), to look forward to.
    • 4/5
      In 1170, a child is found brutally murdered in Cambridge, and the townspeople are quick to blame the Jews. King Henry II doesn't particularly care about the Jewish people, but he does care about his lost income now that they are holed up in a castle for their own protection, and arranges to have someone sent to investigate. Enter Adelia, a woman doctor from Salerno, and her traveling companions Simon and Mansur, who arrive to look into the matter.The best historical fiction, to my mind, teaches you something about a time period, a people, or a culture while telling a really good story. This book does that in spades, giving such information about the Church at that time, medicine, and more. Yet there's no time for an information dump, because the story reads fast, at first because there is a lot of dialog and short paragraphs and, as the story progresses, an ever-faster pace as we draw closer to the conclusion. I have to say, the identity of the murderer was not all that surprising to me (one of a few people I had on my own suspects list), but exactly how it happened and how everything was resolved was indeed unexpected. In this sort of book, you're always on the lookout for glaring anachronisms. Adelia herself is the biggest anachronism of all - not so much because she's a woman doctor, which is handled believably, but because of her modern ideas and practices. The others are dealt with well in the author's note. The descriptions of the dead and what had been done to them was a bit much for the squeamish side of me. Granted, I was reading so fast much of this washed over me and I only noticed looking back.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book set in the 1100 about a female doctor helping solve a mystery.
    • 5/5
      Really enjoyable, hard to put down. It's The Canterbury Tales meets CSI--that, for me, is one of those "you had me at hello" combinations! Strong, motivated character in Adriana; lots of interesting supporting characters. Enough twists and turns to keep me nervous the whole time--would they find the killer of the children before another child dies? I'm not the kind of mystery reader who likes to see the story laid out ahead of time--some plots are just too easy--and this plot certainly kept me entertained. I plan to read all of her other books now, too.
    • 5/5
      Like CSI but set in 12th century Britain, with an added dash of feminism. This was a great read, if a little gory and graphic in places. I will add Adelia to my list of favourite characters.
    • 2/5
      Pretty good historical fiction. If you liked the Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, you'd enjoy this.
    • 4/5
      My fear of boring historical novels stopped me from reading this book earlier. I should not have waited. It was a fast moving story, a great mystery that had me guessing until the last minute. I had to cover the words below where I was reading to stop myself from scanning the text to find the name of the killer during the climax.

      There were plenty of racial undertones which are expected in an accurate depiction of medieval England. I was not, however, expecting the women's lib movement. If it turned out Adelia was from the future I would not have been surprised. I can't tell if something like this was true for the times (female dr from Italy) It makes me want to do some research to find the truth.

      In any case this was a great book. If I didn't have to suspend my disbelief at Adelia and the majority of the men's reactions and interactions I would have given this book 5 stars. I will be reading the next in the series.
    • 5/5
      This historical mystery set in Henry II's England was the gift of a friend. Thank you, Kandice, you chose well. The central figure in the novel, Adelia Aguilar of Salerno, is a "Mistress of the Art of Death"--the closest thing the middle ages had to a medical examiner. And as unlikely as it might seem, a female doctor like Adelia is not a politically correct anachronism, was not unique--although she comes from perhaps the only place in the world that could have produced her. For from the 11th to the 13th Century the Schola Medica Salernitana in Salerno was the most celebrated center of medical learning in the Western world--and it taught and graduated both men and women. So Adelia isn't made of whole cloth. Yes, there were and are strong women in every age and position in society. As one friend put it, making them credible is all a matter of the right context--and I think Franklin gives her that. The book is a great blend of historical fiction, mystery and romance. I think it's strongest in the first category though. The romance and mystery is satisfying enough, but I don't think by themselves would make me want to read beyond the first book. I didn't think the romance was really developed enough. But it at least is no "insta-romance" and after all it's not the book's focus. In terms of the mystery--well, I think the main culprit was far too obvious, far too early on. Even if there was one surprising aspect to the mystery, and one that did fit the clues. The style is strong in some respects. My one complaint was the head-hopping. This isn't really omniscient--it doesn't have the overarching narrative structure and voice for that--it just comes across as sloppy third person limited, and if the story weren't strong in other ways, that might be a dealbreaker. But I grew very fond of the characters in the course of the book, and Franklin's way with the setting was beguiling. She's great at bringing the middle ages to life in all its misogynistic, anti-Semitic, superstitious glory--but showing some of the complexity that makes it perhaps not so easy to put down as simply barbarous, with the glints of humanity here and there. Maybe at that not so different from our own age in that respect.Franklin's medieval England is as credible, and just as involving, as Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael series of mysteries. This is a series too, and I'm eager to spend more time in this world. Although, alas, it will be a brief tour. There are only four books, and since Franklin died in 2011, there will be no more of them.
    • 4/5
      Immediately engrossing mystery following the murder of children in 12th Century Cambridge. Jews have been accused and to protect them from the angry Christian townspeople, they have been put under the protection of the king and squirreled away in the castle. The burden falls on Adelia Aguilar, a woman doctor specializing in what is today called forensic medicine and Simon of Naples, a Jewish investigator, to prove that it was not the Jews at all and to bring the real murderer to light. The characters that bring the story to life are incredibly well-written and the entire work is satisfying as a mystery as well as historical fiction. Loved it.
    • 5/5
      Great book. Truly enjoyed!!